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Sora liked Euphrasia, the new elemental master of wind. She really did. Euphrasia was kind, caring, and seemed pretty trustworthy. Sora didn’t know her too well, at least not yet, but her impression of who was to be the next ninja-in-training had been overwhelmingly positive.
The moment she’d seen them interact for the first time, Sora was sure of it. Arin had a ‘crush’, to put it crudely, on Euphrasia. It was painfully obvious, too. He’d follow her around like a stray dog and always seemed to praise each and every thing she did.
Sora probably would’ve found it more annoying if Euphrasia hadn’t been anything but kind to her. Granted, she still found it annoying, and she teased Arin about it constantly. Arin would immediately deny her speculations, but his cheeks would always turn a faint shade of pink whenever Euphrasia would be brought into the conversation. He was smitten.
Sora, Frak, Coal, and Kai had convinced him to tell her. It had been a hard fought battle, with Arin declining their suggestion time and time again, but eventually, he caved.
“You should tell Euphrasia.” Sora had said one morning. She, Frak, Coal, Kai, and Arin had left the monastery early that morning to run errands in the Crossroads. Coal and Kai had wandered off to browse the morning market, likely in search of the week’s groceries, leaving herself, Frak, and Arin alone to walk the streets.
Arin’s face turned bright red. “What?”
Frak’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Oh you absolutely should.”
“I don’t like Euphrasia, guys.”
Sora gave him a look. “Oh really?”
“I don’t!”
“You look at her with heart eyes.” Frak teased, the corners of his mouth curving upwards into a sly smile. “And you’re like… always with her. We hardly ever see you anymore.”
Arin sighed, exasperation lacing his tone. “I’m with you guys now, am I not?”
Sora rolled her eyes. “That’s because we practically dragged you out of bed before you could make an excuse to sleep in.”
“Arin likes Euphrasiaaaa!” Frak cooed.
“I don’t like Euphrasia!” Arin exclaimed, a little too loudly.
“Woah! Choice words there, buddy.” Sora turned around and saw Kai and Cole walking towards them, both carrying towers of grocery bags. Kai was grinning, evidently proud of himself for walking in on the moment the three of them were sharing. Cole looked annoyed, but his face bore a small fond smile.
“Why don’t you like Euphrasia?” Cole asked, sounding confused. Kai elbowed him in the shoulder.
“Cole!”
“What?”
“You cannot be this clueless.”
“What?”
“Oh my goodness. I swear to the First Spinjitsu Master, you’re so fucking dense.”
“Hey!”
Kai’s grin turned wicked. “Arin doesn’t like Euphrasia. Arin likes Euphrasia.”
“Ohhhhhhh!” A look of recognition passed over Cole’s face.
Cole turned to Arin. “Does she know?”
“No.” Sora said quickly, before he could respond. Arin groaned.
“You should tell her.” Kai said simply. “Better you tell her now than she finds out some eight years later after you haven't seen her for... five something years.”
Cole’s head whipped over. “Hey!”
“What? It’s a hypothetical!”
“You didn’t tell me you liked me either.”
“Yeah, well you pretended to have a crush on my sister for a long fucking time. Was I supposed to think you were into me?”
Cole looked at the red ninja intensely. “Babe.”
Kai matched Cole’s look, though the effect was marred by the fact that he was still grinning. “Babe.”
“Ok, ok, stop fighting you old married couple.” Frak cut in before the pair could continue. Kai and Cole both turned to glare at him and the orange serpentine withered slightly under their piercing gazes.
After a moment, Cole turned to Arin. “You should tell her, though. Seriously!” He added when Kai started snickering. Cole sighed. “I’m going to be honest with you. If I could go back in time right now, I would’ve told Kai I loved him a long, long time ago. Love is like a tattoo. No matter how long you ignore it, or how much you want to get rid of it, it’s always there. Lingering. You might lose sight of it, but never for long. It’ll always come rearing its ugly head.”
“Ugly head?” Kai said indignantly.
Cole nodded absentmindedly. “Yes.”
“I’m so offended.”
“You should be. You’re an idiot.”
“A lovable idiot?”
Cole paused for a moment before saying, “Yeah.”
“So romantic.” Kai murmured. Cole swatted at him. “Ow, ow, okay!”
Arin hid his face in his hands.
So now, here they were. Arin looked miserable. His hands were buried deep in the pocket of his orange hoodie, his face covered by his ninja mask. Sora approached slowly, careful not to startle her best friend.
“Did you ask her?” Sora asked softly.
Arin shifted slightly. “Yeah.”
Sora frowned for a split second before she asked, “What’d she say?”
“No.” The word was so quiet that for a brief moment, Sora thought she’d imagined it.
“No?”
“Yeah.” Sora’s heart broke for Arin, who she knew would rather die than ask anyone for anything. The boy who had no concept of asking for help. The boy who’d just bared his heart to the person he cared about the most, and had been denied.
Sora reached out and hooked an arm around Arin’s shoulder, pulling him close. “Arin…” Her voice trailed off.
“It’s not a big deal.” The younger ninja tried, though he wasn’t very convincing. “I should’ve known better. She… she’s too good for me anyway.” He choked out a broken laugh. “At least now I can stop wondering if-” His voice broke.
Sora hugged Arin tighter as the boy began to cry. Arin hated crying. Anyone who knew him knew it. Even Sora, who’d known Arin for many, many years, had never seen him really cry. Not like this. “I’m sorry.” She murmured.
Arin nodded, mumbling something incoherently along the lines of, “don’t be. It wasn’t your fault.” into her shoulder. His tears soaked Sora’s white and pink hoodie, but at that moment, she didn’t care. She was solely focusing on the boy falling apart at the seams in front of her.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” She said gently, rubbing circles on Arin’s back. Arin choked out a sob. “Seriously. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Arin closed his eyes, tears streaking his face. “Sure as hell feels like I did.”
“I’m serious. You didn’t.” Arin sucked in a breath, and for a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then, in a voice so uncharacteristically small, Arin whispered, “I mess everything up.”
There it was. The confession. Simple and understated, but more meaningful than Arin would ever truly understand.
“You don’t-” “I do.” Arin’s voice was shockingly stable, his tone direct. Purposeful. As if until now, he’d been walking a tightrope, and he’d finally fallen off.
“Sora, I do.”
“Arin-”
“No.” The severity in Arin’s tone was jarring. Sora opened her mouth to say something, but he quickly cut her off. “No, Sora. You don’t understand.”
“Come on, Arin!"
“You don’t! I ruin everything. Every single time things are finally going well, I just go and mess it up.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s true though, isn’t it?” Arin let out a humorless laugh. “Think about it. We finally had stable lives – as ninja, no less! We were being trained by the ninja. It wasn’t perfect, but it was ours. We finally had some… some stability. And what do I have to do?” Arin’s face contorted into something that fell between pain and resentment. “I have to go off and join Raz.”
“You did that to find your parents, Arin.”
“And did that work?” He shot back. “No. It didn’t. All I got out of that was anger, pain, and shitty cursed spinjitsu.”
“Arin-”
“And then, when I finally come to my fucking senses, I have to go and ruin it. Again. I go back to Raz, and drag you along with me.”
“I chose to follow you, Arin.” Exasperation laced Sora’s tone.
“But I was the reason you went at all.” Arin pulled away from Sora’s embrace, his eyes wide and bloodshot. “You almost died in the underworld, Sora. You almost died.” His voice trembled dangerously. “And it was my fault.”
Sora took a step towards him. “I don’t blame you for any of that, Arin. No one does.”
“You should!” Arin shouted. And then, silence. Several moments of agonizing silence.
Sora blinked more times than reasonably necessary. Arin looked like he’d just lost a war with his own psyche. Quieter, he whispered, “Maybe I don’t deserve love.”
The admission came with no grand gesture. It was soft, low, faint even. But those five words came with so much raw honesty… and pain.
Sora’s heart broke. “Arin…”
“Don’t bother.” Arin said in the same small, quiet voice he’d used just moments before. “It’s not worth it.” And before Sora could say anything, Arin ducked out of the clearing, leaving her alone.